"Shut it up; it's not fit for Sunday. And tell me now, is yer motor car iled and ready to go?"
"It is at your disposal. Are you wanting me to take some orphans for a ride?"
"Just one who's sufferin' from a nervous system. She's taken a fixed idea that she must get to the top o' the hills."
"My car is a grand climber. In fifteen minutes—"
"Wait!" said I. "Bring with ye a frying pan that's a decent size for two. There's nothing in my kitchen smaller than a cart wheel. And ask Mrs. McGurk can ye stay out for supper."
So I packed in a basket a jar of bacon and some eggs and muffins and ginger cookies, with hot coffee in the thermos bottle, and was waiting on the steps when Sandy chugged up with his automobile and frying pan.
We really had a beautiful adventure, and he enjoyed the sensation of running away exactly as much as I. Not once did I let him mention insanity. I made him look at the wide stretches of meadow and the lines of pollard willows backed by billowing hills, and sniff the air, and listen to the cawing crows and the tinkle of cowbells and the gurgling of the river. And we talked—oh, about a million things far removed from our asylum. I made him throw away the idea that he is a scientist, and pretend to be a boy. You will scarcely credit the assertion, but he succeeded—more or less. He did pull off one or two really boyish pranks. Sandy is not yet out of his thirties and, mercy! that is too early to be grown up.
We camped on a bluff overlooking our view, gathered some driftwood, built a fire, and cooked the NICEST supper—a sprinkling of burnt stick in our fried eggs, but charcoal's healthy. Then, when Sandy had finished his pipe and "the sun was setting in its wonted west," we packed up and coasted back home.
He says it was the nicest afternoon he has had in years, and, poor deluded man of science, I actually believe it's true. His olive green home is so uncomfortable and dreary and uninspiring that I don't wonder he drowns his troubles in books. Just as soon as I can find a nice comfortable house mother to put in charge, I am going to plot for the dismissal of Maggie McGurk, though I foresee that she will be even harder than Sterry to pry from her moorings.
Please don't draw the conclusion that I am becoming unduly interested in our bad-tempered doctor, for I'm not. It's just that he leads such a comfortless life that I sometimes long to pat him on the head and tell him to cheer up; the world's full of sunshine, and some of it's for him—just as I long to comfort my hundred and seven orphans; so much and no more.